Henrik Lundqvist wore a look of dejection and embarrassment after it was all over.

"I don't know how to explain it," Lundqvist said of the Rangers' 8-5 loss to the Devils Friday night at the Prudential Center. "It's very tough to sit here. Eight goals. For a goalie, that's not fun."

Lundqvist played the entire game, and yet Rangers coach Tom Renney seemed more upset with the 18 skaters who played in front of Lundqvist than he was with the goalie.

With another game Saturday night at Madison Square Garden against the Carolina Hurricanes, Renney could have pulled Lundqvist after Dainius Zubrus scored at 11:33 of the second period, to make it 5-1, Devils.

But Renney called timeout after that goal and decided to stick with his No. 1 goaltender.

"I didn't think about taking him out at all," Renney said. "I felt this was a hell of an opportunity for our team to show that guy that we do have the fight in us, that we do have the ability to get ourselves back in the hockey game. Certainly, to a man, they knew that on the bench, that they owed him that much. Because I thought he played exceptional.

"I didn't have any qualms about leaving him in at all. This was not Henrik Lundqvist tonight."

Amazingly, the Rangers got back into the game.

Nikolai Zherdev and Scott Gomez scored before the second period was over to make it 5-3, and Paul Mara and Ryan Callahan scored in the third to tie the score, 5-5. But just 11 seconds after Callahan scored, a wide-open Patrik Elias banged in a feed from Zubrus to give the Devils the lead again, 6-5, at 11:29 of the third, and little more than a minute and a half later, Brian Gionta got behind the Rangers' defense and scored on a breakaway to make it 7-5.

"They scored right away on the sixth goal there," Lundqvist said glumly. "That was a tough one, I think. We've got so much energy, coming back, to tie the game, finally - we had some problems in our own zone, obviously. They found some openings a lot of times tonight and made it look pretty easy. They're a good team as well. But ..."

Lundqvist refused to blame his defense.

"It starts with me," he said. "After a few goals, it's tough to stay with a game plan. You start second-guessing, 'Okay, what am I doing wrong here?' You try to stick with it. A couple plays, I'm right there (in position for the shot) and they just find another guy and it's wide open."

That might suggest the defensemen didn't have good enough coverage in front of their net.

"We gave them the offensive zone," said Renney. "I don't know that we battled hard enough in our own end."

But Renney wouldn't put the loss only on his defensemen (including Wade Redden, a minus-4).

"I think it's the responsibility of every skater on the ice to be sound defensively," Renney said. "We're not hanging this on six (defensemen). At all. We have 20 people out there and people behind the bench that should be responsible enough to make sure we play a complete game ... and give yourself a chance to win."

Lundqvist was asked if he wants to play again Saturday night.

"I'm not making that decision," he said. "If Tom tells me to play, I'll be ready to play."